Hiring A Salesperson? You’ll Want To Read This First

Growing a team can be the most exciting and most difficult part of scaling your business. The right hires can propel you to new heights while challenging the status quo — and the wrong hires, in many cases, can end up costing you more in the long run.

The wrong person, in the wrong role, at the wrong time, can cost your company up to 1500%. A combination of tangible costs like recruiting resources, hiring resources, time, and money — as well as intangibles, like the impact on your culture, time wasted across your team, and the overall performance of your organization – can really impact your bottom line.

The wrong person, in the wrong role, at the wrong time, can cost your company up to 1500%

Furthermore, in today’s talent landscape, the odds are somewhat stacked against you:

71% of companies take 6 months to ramp up/onboard new reps.

51% of salespeople start looking for a new job just after their first year.

44% don’t make it longer than 18 months.

With good talent becoming harder to find, more expensive, and carrying more risk — it is natural for teams to look for alternative options, rather than investing so much time into a resource that may not stick around beyong a year’s time. The risk also increases if your sales systems are not fully built out and optimized – as new hires usually spend the bulk of their time prospecting rather than later stage sales discussions or closing deals. A staggering 40% of a sales reps’ time is spent doing research and managing data in the CRM – no calls, and no outreach.

So, what can teams do when they need to build a more predictable sales system?

Outsourcing lead generation and top-of-the-funnel activities to a trusted, proven source, is a great way for scaling teams to prove product-market-fit, gain traction in new verticals, and collect valuable marketing insights without taking on the risks and costs of hiring a new salesperson.

Why not skip the 6-month recruitment and onboarding process, eliminate the retention worries, and get right to work with a specialized partner who can immediately target decision makers, build scalable sales systems, and fill your sales pipeline? Once your pipeline begins to fill up, plugging SDRs into a healthy sales system, where you know they will be set up for success, is the next step.

However, there are several important elements to keep in mind when engaging in one of these partnerships, here are a few to keep close:

Be sure to stay on brand & speak the same language.

Many companies do not have an aligned voice across their email campaigns, websites, phone follow-ups, and social media – this creates confusion and brand dilution – not to mention protecting your brand and making a good first-impression is priority number one when doing outbound sales.

Identify your target market & align your messaging.

Know your audience, and speak on their level. The importance of aligning your message with what your target audience cares about cannot be understated – relate to their world, speak to their pains, and map this all out across your email campaigns so you can effectively optimize both your audience and messaging as you progress.

Track what you do & use what you track.

Optimizing your email campaigns and your overall sales process comes down to effective reporting and effective implementation. If you are tracking Reply Rates on a weekly basis, why? Do you have a system to implement changes? Are you A/B testing different calls to action? Know what you are tracking, decide why it is important, and listen to the data.

Keep Communication & Collaboration top of mind.

When working with a third-party company to help with your lead generation, communication needs to be quick, seamless, and concise. We bring our clients into our Slack instance, as well as swap personal contact details to ensure we can touch base and address wins or blockers when they come up. Establishing communication workflows that both teams are comfortable with is essential – this enables a healthy working relationship, ensures items are dealt with efficiently, and build a good base for collaboration.

Deciding to work with a specialized team vs hiring a salesperson has many benefits, especially while scaling — be sure to weigh your priorities and growth metrics before deciding which is right for you.

Unsure if an outsource model could work for you? Contact us for a free consultation.